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DEATH. 



IJST THE LIGHT 



HARMON I AL PHILOSOPHY. 



By MARY F. DAVIS. 



''High lies that better country. 
The land of morning and perpetual spring.* 



NEW YORK : 

A. J. DAVIS & CO.. 

PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING HOUSE, 

xo. u east fourth street. 

1876. j 

4o O^ 



. 



DEATH 



iy THE LIGHT 



HARMON I AL PHILOSOPHY. 



By MARY F. DAVIS. 



"High lies that better country, 
The land of morning and perpetual spring." 



NEW YORK : 

A. J. DAVIS & CO., 

PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING HOUSE, 

No. 24 EAST FOURTH STREET. 
1876. 



jys^/*— 



.3^ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, 

By ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS, 

in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



John F. Trow & Son, 

PRINTERS AND STEREOTYPERS, 

205-213 East 12th St., 

NEW YORK. 



PREFACE. 



The truth about death never breaks upon us until 
the light of the spiritual universe shines into the deep 
darkness of the doubting mind. Until this higher re- 
velation is given to the understanding, the outward fact 
of death strikes one with the awful force of Fate. By 
many it is regarded as a " mysterious act of Providence/ 5 
a shadow sent like a thunderbolt from the throne of 
God, a punishment inflicted by a dread Power upon a 
sinful world, filling human habitations with sorrow and 
desolation. The stricken heart cries out : 

" I shrink away from it, with unbelief 
That thou, my sunshine and my light of life, 
Art gone forever out of touch and sight, 
From any recognition of my sense, 
Into a black, impenetrable night." 



IV PREFACE. 

This awf ulness and desolation can be removed only 
by the light of truth which beams upon the world 
from the spiritual universe. Unless the inner life be 
unfolded, or the senses which we shall possess after 
death be opened this side of the grave, darkness and 
doubt fill the groping mind, and the bereaved heart 
is wrung with anguish. The physical senses cannot 
perceive spiritual realities, neither can the sense-edu- 
cated mind reason clearly concerning things spiritual. 
There must be some degree of awakening of the inner 
sensibilities before the individual can rise out of the 
overwhelming grief and gloom attendant on the mys- 
terious wrenching from our grasp of the beloved ones 
whom we hold dearer than life. For the want of this 
interior awakening many suffering hearts seek for a 
" sign," through religious excitement, or through mani- 
fold marvels. But individual growth into spirituality 
should be first sought. We should aim to arise into 
that harmonious state—that oneness with the Divine 
nature which would make communion with the departed 
possible, and then we shall cease to crave such purely 
external methods of communication as now seem to 
threaten a lower tone to Spiritualism. May the pure 



PREFACE. V 

white light out of which this sacred Eevelation came, 
so permeate and possess *our interior natures that the 
words of the poet who wrote of " Presence " may be our 
own : 

" O nameless thing ! which art and art not ; spell 
"Whose bond can bind the powers of the air, 
Compelling them thy face to hide or bear. 
O voice ! which, bringing not the faintest swell 
Of sound, canst in the air so crowd and dwell 
That all sounds die. O sight ! which needst no share 
Of sun, which sav'st blind eyes from their despair, 
O touch ! which dost not touch, and yet canst tell 
To waiting flesh, by thy caress complete, 
The whole of love, till veins grow red with heat ; 
O life of life ! to which graves are not girt 
With terror, and all death can bring no hurt. 
O mystery of blessing ! never lift 
Thy veil ! our one inalienable gift ! " 

The Harmonial view of death, a hint of which is 
attempted in the following pages, can be obtained not 
from the " night side " but from the light side of Nature. 
From this spiritual summit w T e see 

' ; The stars go down to rise upon some fairer shore." 



VI PREFACE. 

Our loved ones go through the change mis-called 
death, leaving us desolate in «the external life, but be- 
yond we find them all again, fair as immortal flowers 
blooming in the Garden of God. The smile which the 
departing spirit leaves on the pallid lips we love is a 
token of the triumphant joy of which the expression 
would be : 

" O death, where is thy sting ? 
O grave, where is thy victory ? " 

M. F. D. 
New York, May 15th, 1876, 



D E ^l T H 



LIGHT OF THE HARMONIAL PHILOSOPHY. 



Nature is the interpreter of man. In her multiform 
phenomena, and the subtile laws which underlie them, 
we can find a sure clue to that being which we are and 
possess. Hence, if we would make ourselves proprietors 
of that knowledge which is the sum of all, namely, 
knowledge of the soul, we must be humble students of 
Nature outside of man, no less than of Nature in his 
essence and organization. 

Kneeling thus reverently at the vestibule of her 
great temple, she will ere long introduce us into the 
holy of holies, where we shall see the pure transparent 
glow of a spiritual light enveloping all things, so that 
they stand transfigured before us, and we behold their 
richness and their significance. 

Then the lightest breath of golden-robed summer, 
the faintest carol of singing-birds, the most gauzy cloud 
floating adown the deep of noonday, the sunset bril- 



8 NATURE WITHOUT AND WITHIN MAN. 

liancy of autumn eves, the vast, enveloping ocean, 
the grand old hills, and the ever-moving, ever-changing 
panorama of seasons, and suns, and stars, and human 
forms — these all alike strike upon the electric chain of 
being, and awaken us to wonder and wisdom, joy and 
worship. 

NATURE WITHOUT AND WITHIN MAN. 

This is because Nature outside of man represents 
what is within him. It is because the spirit is the 
fountain of all forms, forces, and attributes ; of love, 
wisdom, power, virtue; of beauty, sublimity, eternal 
repose, and eternal activity ; it is because of this that 
we feel ourselves related to the broad universe, spread- 
ing off into immensity around us. Hence, the mute 
violet and the shining stream have a language that we 
can understand, and the surging meadow and forest 
oak have each a mission to our deepest consciousness. 
The sea-beat answers to our heart-beat, and within the 
soul chime melodies that are repeated by every orb that 
floats in the infinite abyss of motion. How truly said 
the great poet : 

" I live not in myself, but I become 
Portion of that around me : and to me 
High mountains are a feeling 



UNIVERSAL UNITY OF THINGS. 9 

I can see 
Nothing to loathe in Nature, save to be 
A link reluctant in a fleshly chain, 
Classed among creatures, when the soul can flee, 
And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain 
Of ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain." 

Thus gently doth Nature teach her attentive children. 
Through the cycles of eternal change there flows an 
anthem of eternal melody ; sad and gay, grand and 
pathetic, by turns, but ever pealing through the universe 
in rhythmical cadence and unbroken harmony. 

UNIVERSAL UNITY OF THINGS. 

When we go a few miles apart from the rush and 
crush of a busy city, we find that all its discordant 
sounds gradually melt and blend, until at last we hear 
only a murmur like the soft tread of forest streams, or 
the wavy chime of distant bells. Thus it is when we 
ascend the mountain of contemplation and serenely 
overlook the kingdoms of the world and the realm of 
Nature. Time and space, accident and circumstance, 
life and death, all settle into their own place on the 
scale, like the major and minor notes in a grand 
oratario ; and we listen, soothed and satisfied, to the 
rise and fall and never-ceasing flow of the one universal 
anthem. 



10 THE ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY OF DEATH. 

Nature, then, is our friend. Nay, more ; she is our 
Mother. When saddened by sorrow, or crushed by care 
and toil, we can go into her blessed sanctuary and lay 
our anguished iieart upon her great heart. Pulse to 
pulse, life to life — thus reposing and believing — we 
feel the waters of peace distilling, drop by drop, upon 
the centre of our souls, until at last we rise into the 
budding freshness of new energies and higher hopes. 

Tenderly does our Mother Nature lead us into the 
serene depth, the holy silence, where dwelieth our 
Father God. When we obey her, she caresses us and 
clothes us with beauty and happiness. When we dis- 
obey her, she repels us and sets upon our being the seal 
of deformity and pain. When our soul becomes weary 
of companionship with the body, then does she gather 
the frail form in her loving arms and lay it away to 
rest, opening the door, meanwhile, for the spirit's 
ingress to the higher and better mansions of our 
Father. 

THE ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY OF DEATH. 

And this is what we call Death. More surely than 
any other change comes this great change to every 
child of earth. What may occur in our experience the 
next week or the next year, with whom we may seek 



THE ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY OF DEATH. 11 

or avoid companionship, what perilous or pleasant paths 
we may tread, what oceans we may sail or lands 
traverse, we know not. Human events, like the ebb 
and flow of the sea, take place with that alternation 
which marks the order of universal nature ; but when 
our vision would rend the veil and read the law which 
might interpret the past and prophesy of the future, we 
find the infinite soul overlaid by the deep shadow of a 
finite existence. 

Hence, uncertainty attends our forward steps in life, 
but concerning death there can be no doubt. As surely 
as we exist, so surely will the moment come when the 
soul w T ill go out with the last gasp of the quivering 
frame. 

There are j)eriods in human experience when this 
certainty seems to follow on our track like the footsteps 
of fate. We dread the stealthy foe, yet cannot elude 
his grasp. We love life and hate decay ; we rejoice in 
health and- shrink from disorganization. Yet surelv, 
steadily, each moment bears us nearer and still nearer 
the returnless wave. Then comes the fearful illustra- 
tion of the power of the conqueror — the tragedy of 
mortal disease, holding in its iron grasp those we love 
best; the heart-agony of the last farewell — the cold, 
white form — the coffin — the grave. 

In all this Nature seems unkind, life a failure, the 



12 THE SOUL'S SUPREMACY TO DEATH. 

fleeting joys of a few brief years no compensation for 
the mysteries and miseries of existence. 

Such is the feeling of the stricken heart, such are the 
. contemplations of the struggling soul, as long as the 
rays of the spiritual sun fail to penetrate the thick folds 
of earthly being. Not until the very God warms into 
life the germs of our latent spiritual consciousness, not 
until we can walk serenely in the light of our Father's 
smile, shall we see clearly the perfectness and glory of 
our Mother's work, and rest in sacred faith and holy 
joy within her protecting arms. 

THE SOUL'S SUPREMACY TO DEATH. 

That is a low state of mind over which a dread of 
death holds predominance. In high and heroic 
moments we can be swayed by no such fear. When 
some great truth or sublime passion seizes and absorbs 
the soul, how insensible are we to all that # can disturb 
or destroy the body ! Then we feel related to omnipo- 
tence, and in our potentiality are so fully aware that 
we cannot cease to he, that mere personal safety is a 
matter of no moment and no concern. 

When a fierce Roman soldier broke into the study of 
Archimedes, and advanced with uplifted sword to 
cleave him in twain, the philosopher paid no heed to 



THE SOUL'S SUPREMACY TO DEATH. 13 

his own danger, but, intent upon a scientific truth, 
merely requested time to finish his theorem. 

Socrates knew no sublimer hour than that in which 
he conversed sweetly and calmly with his friends, while 
drinking the deadly hemlock. 

There has been many a religious martyr burned at 
the stake who, during the long agonies of that terrible 
death, has had a countenance radiant as a seraph's, 
with the unspeakable joy of a blameless spirit, daunt- 
less in its godlike adherence to the principle of 
Eight. 

How encouraging; to know that there are moments 
when any human soul can be thus grandly defiant, thus 
nobly self-poised and transcendent ! For if one can 
become heroic, then another and all others can : and if, 
during a few shining moments, the spirit can be 
brought to triumph over sense, then the time may come 
when existence will be overarched and interfused with 
this diviner life, which will make all moments and all 
deeds sublime. 

But now, instead of walking the earth erect, with an 
ever-present consciousness of a princely dower, which 
no change can diminish, no decay mar, no death 
destroy, we skulk and cringe like craven souls, and 
tremble lest some dire destiny overtake us. 



14 DEGRADING TEACHINGS OF THEOLOGY. 
DEGRADING TEACHINGS OF THEOLOGY. 

To this unworthy tendency the theologies of the 
world have always lent their powerful aid. That 
which is called Christian has especially conduced to 
degrade man. It teaches that from the first we are 
totally depraved ; that " from the sole of the foot even 
unto the head there is no soundness in it, [us,] but 
wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores." To be 
saved from this horrible spiritual malady, we must 
debase ourselves still more before a terrible potentate — 
submit to the shameful dishonor of imputing our sins 
to an innocent person, or, at least, of accepting a 
reprieve through the torture and death of that unof- 
fending being ; then " put our hand upon our mouth 
and our mouth in the dust," and writhe and creep, like 
degraded serfs, at the feet of a dread and revengeful 
demon, misnamed — Deity. 

In many ways does this narrow theology tend to 
belittle, debase, and disgrace humanity. It not only 
fills life with low aims and ignoble deeds, but it teaches 
most unnatural, unwholesome, aud repulsive views with 
regard to death. Contrary to all the beautiful lessons 
of Nature in the visible sphere which we inhabit, 
Christian theology assumes that man was first created 
with an imperishable physical organism ; but, in conse- 



DEGRADING TEACHINGS OF THEOLOGY. 15 

quence of disobedience to a whimsical command of his 
Maker, the law of his existence was at once arbitrarily 
subverted by his short-sighted and capricious monarch. 
The matchless twain of Eden ate 

"The fruit 
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the world, and all our woe," 

and the austere Judge who owned the luxurious garden, 
and placed his ignorant children in reach of its tempt- 
ing fruit, smote not only the terrified pair and all their 
posterity with his prolonged vengeance, but cursed the 
very ground for their sake. 

We see that, according to this theological romance. 
Death is an arbitrary decree of a revengeful tyrant ; 
and hence it becomes, to the misdirected imagination, 
an event of terror, hate, and indescribable foreboding. 
The thought of it is to many an incubus, pressing upon 
the faculties by night and by day, and paralyzing the 
best energies and most exalted hopes. Devout church- 
members, pastors of nourishing congregations, and 
zealous tract societies, awaken into morbidly-intense 
activity this ever-lowering fear, by presenting Death as 
the first, the last, the only subject worthy the attention 
of a human being during the days, months, and years 
of earthly life. To be prepared for that awful event ; 



16 DEGKADING TEACHINGS OF THEOLOGY. 

to be ever watchful lest it come as a thief in the night ; 
to wait in solemn, mournful apprehension, for the 
" king of terrors ;" to keep in constant view of others, 
and especially the young, startling visions of 

** The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier, 
And all we know, or dream, or fear, 
Of agony " 

connected with the grave ; to consider all motives, all 
acts, small and mean compared with the absorbing, 
overwhelming effort of preparing for the narrow house 
and the destroying worm— these seem to be among the 
great aims of a sectarian propagandism and dogmatic 
theology. 

It is true that the earth smiles in its fresh spring 
loveliness, and waters come gushing in wild abandon 
from merry mountain streams, and bending skies are 
mantled all over with a flush like that of joy, and white 
lambs gambol upon sunny slopes ; but man, the noblest, 
best of God's creatures, must sit in sackcloth and 
ashes, ever reflecting on 

"That hushed, Cimmerian vale, 
Where darkness, brooding o'er unfinished fates, 
With raven wing incumbent, waits the day- 
Dread day ! — that interdicts all future change." 

As though it were not enough to blaspheme the Divine 



THE INFALLIBLE TEACHINGS OF NATURE. 17 

humanity by calling it wholly sinful ; but our swift 
moments must be laden with this deadly weight of 
anxiety concerning the most golden circumstance 
among all those which cluster upon the rosary of our 
passing years ! The great, earnest, strong hours of a 
whole lifetime, made to bend in subserviency to the 
few illumined moments during which the spirit 
changes its apparel, or the mortal puts on immortality I 

THE INFALLIBLE TEACHINGS OF NATURE. 

We will turn from these erroneous, oppressive, aiid 
repulsive views of man and his relations to God, and 
contemplate life and its changes in their real beauty, 
grandeur, and significance. We will seek truth ; not in 
the muddy channels of theological speculation, but in 
the broad and blooming fields of Nature. We will in- 
quire of the plant, the animal, the ever-changeful yet 
ever-steadfast nature of man, and of the golden spheres 
beyond which angels inhabit, and see what answer they 
will bring to satisfy the deathless yearnings of the 
spirit. 

In our researches hitherto we have been wandering 
from home — from the clear, deep fountain of knowl- 
edge, wisdom, and joy. Physically, we have turned 
ourselves out of doors by allowing ordinary impulses 
and appetites to hold sway over the higher faculties of 



18 HARMONIAL VIEWS OF LIFE AND DESTINY. 

our nature. Intellectually, we cultivate a feverish 
restlessness which 'we denominate " activity ; "' and 
under its impelling force we go driving througli 
colleges, and books, and foreign countries, forgetting 
that vast libraries are locked up in the labyrinth of our 
own souls, with volumes more elaborate, and compre- 
hensive, and beautiful, than were ever written — nn- # 
mindful that wild sierras, and soft, Italian skies, and 
surging Mediterraneans, and cloud-capped Alpine 
peaks, are but a faint reflex of a gorgeous inner world 
which the outer bodily temple doth but conceal and 
guard ! Spiritually, we resort to creeds and dogmas, 
and feed on the mildewed husks of a religion from 
which the live kernel has long since emerged, all un- 
conscious that a Divinity sits in the deep sanctuary of 
our being, waiting to transfuse celestial ambrosia 
through our hungered spirits, and "fill our whole natures 
with the sweet radiance and sacred bliss of purity, 
harmony, and love ! 

HAEMONIAL VIEWS OF LIFE AND DESTINY. 

But we need be wanderers no longer. The new 
Spiritual Religion, which the Harmonial Philosophy 
teaches, is bringing us more and more into a grateful 
recognition of this interior life, with its immense 
facilities and enjoyments. We are beginning to ex- 



HARMONIAL VIEWS OF LIFE AND DESTINY. 19 

perience, more and more frequently, those intense 
momentary exaltations during which whole seas of 
hitherto hidden wisdom seem struck out of the rock in 
which we are imbedded, and sw T iftly surge before our 
startled vision. The angel world is bending low to 
bless us with a baptism of strength and aspiration, that 
thereby we may ascend into that illuminated atmosphere 
which invests all things with the glow of inspiration. 
The world no longer seems 

"A fleeting show, 
For man's illusion given," 

but a glorious sphere of actual, earnest, sublime en- 
deavor. We no longer dawdle away existence in pre- 
paring to die, but we make ready to live the largest, 
truest, purest lives of which we are capable. The past 
is no master, the future no dread; but the eternal 
present is ours, and the acts of this moment claim our 
worthiest and noblest aims. We now know that our 
earthly life is not a mere probationary scene — a 
" stage " on which is to be enacted the divine tragedy 
of "Redemption" — a battle-field where Satan and 
Jehovah enlist embittered hosts in fiery contention for 
the souls of men ; but Nature has given us birth and 
being here for the sake of perfecting an individual 
spiritual organization which shall outlive the sun. 



20 HARMONIAL VIEWS OF LIFE AND DESTINY. 

On the very summit of life has she reared the temple 
of Humanity. Low down, in the mineral kingdom, did 
she commence the pyramidal structure. Patiently, 
through long cycles of ages, she, our Mother, wrought, 
forming, combining, dissolving, and reconstructing, 
placing deposit upon deposit, and strata upon strata, 
building up the vegetable kingdom on a mineral 
foundation, causing the complicated animal structure 
to spring from the vegetable world, linking motion to 
matter, life to motion, sensation to life, and intelligence 
to sensation, until, at length, man stood upon the apex 
of that vast and glorious mountain. So perfect was 
the chain of being that there is not an atom or element, 
not a force or form in all that unimaginable machinery 
of means, but finds itself duplicated in this wonderful 
human structure, which is the end and culmination of 
all. 

We are, then, truly related to the external universe 
by every fibre of our being, and yet superior to it all. 
Hence that mysterious sympathy which we feel in 
solitary places, that deep, restful lull which contact 
with green fields and graceful trees will give us, that 
sublime joy of communion with mountains and stars, 
that dear consolation in sorrow and despair, which 
comes in the voice of rushing of mighty waters; and, 
amid all, that feeling of supremacy over time and 



WHY IS MAN THE HIGHEST ORGANISM? 21 

change which rises like an aroused spirit within us, at 
such moments of contemplation. 

It was more than poetic fancy — it was an everlasting 
truth — that came welling up from the gifted soul of 
George Herbert, when he penned the following noble 
lines : 

" Nothing hath gone so far 
But man hath caught and kept it as his prey ; 

His eyes dismount the highest star; 

He is in little all the sphere. 
Herbs gladly cure our flesh because that they 

Find their acquaintance there. 

More servants wait on man 
Than he'll take notice of ; in every path 

He treads down that which doth befriend him 

When sickness makes him pale and wan. 
O mighty love ! Man is one world and hath 

Another to attend him." 

Feeling this intimacy with our universal Mother, we 
can but inquire her aim in thus perfecting her organic 
work, in thus concentrating the riches of the outer 
universe in the form and essence of man's nature. 

WHY IS MAN THE HIGHEST OKGANISM ? 

Nature is neither tardy nor equivocal in her response. 
She tells us that the lower kingdoms of Nature consti- 



22 WHY IS MAN THE HIGHEST ORGANISM ? 

tute a factory, so to say, by means of which the human 
body was constructed ; and that the body, in turn, 
becomes the cradle, or vehicle, or dwelling, by means 
of which the spirit is organized, perfected, individual- 
ized, and made immortal. Not that matter creates 
spirit ; this could not be ; but the peculiar combination 
of matter which exists in the human structure makes 
it possible by means of that structure, and by that 
means only, for spirit to become organized and inde- 
structible. As electricity, though existing previously in 
a latent and intangible state, is eliminated by means of 
the galvanic battery, so spirit, though existing previous 
to and separate from the body, is, by means of the 
external organism, evolved, so to say, and enabled to 
gather to itself the form and substance which are im- 
perishable. 

It plainly appears, then, that this life is but the 
beginning of an unending existence, and this world, 
with all its beauty, is but a mere shadow of that which 
is to come. " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither 
have entered into the mind of man " the blessed reali- 
ties which Nature hath in store for all her children. 

" I feel my immortality o'ersweep 
All pains, all groans, all time, all fears— and peal, 
Like the eternal thunders of the deep, 
Into my soul this truth—' Thou liv'st forever.' " 



WHAT IS THE REALITY OF DEATH? 23 
WHAT IS THE REALITY OF DEATH? 

What is Death ? What, but a mere circumstance in 
an endless existence, less deplorable than banishment 
to a far country, less than an unworthy deed, less 
than the rupture of friendship's ties, less than the hour 
of physical distress, which you, my friend, have often 
experienced ! Like falling asleep on a bed of sand to 
awake in a garden of roses, would be the natural de- 
parture of the spirit from earth. Could we truly live 
till childhood had ripened into youth, and youth into 
manhood, and manhood into old age, so that the spirit 
could have the full benefit of a life on earth, then 
would the body fall off like a worn-out and useless 
garment ; and the soul, in the fresh-born vigor of 
immortal youth, would sail joyously into the atmosphere 
of its higher and better home. 

Only thus can Death be truly a messenger of joy. 
Kature shrinks from violence and pain ; and decease 
occasioned by evil practices, or the departure of child- 
hood and youth for the far land of souls, or the severing 
of body and spirit by disease or accident, are events 
always to be shunned and lamented. Little children 
are happy in the Summer Land. Loving spirits shelter 
them under their protecting parental care, and they 
constantly progress in knowledge and wisdom ; but it 



24 SPIEIT INTEECOUESE THEOUGH SPIEIT CULTUEE. 

is of great importance that the spirit should accompany 
the body into the vale of years, in order that it may 
gather to itself those experiences and memories which 
will doubtless be of vast advantage in that sphere of 
existence which succeeds the present. 

Who among the loved ones that have gone before, 
and are now blessing the world with a gentle, welcome 
baptism of angelic guardianship — who among that 
shining band give us the greatest strength and the 
wisest guidance ? Childhood comes with words of love, 
and delicate, fond caresses ; and our hearts, which they 
left so stricken and desolate, beat once more with a 
sudden and overwhelming joy. But when we need 
more than love — when our dim eyes grope for the light 
of wisdom, that our feet may not stumble — do we not 
seek counsel of those whose length of days on earth gave 
them a deep realization of the perils and temptations, 
the sufferings and triumphs, which attend our rudi- 
mental state ? 

SPIEIT INTEECOUESE THEOUGH SPIEIT CULTUEE. 

The more we seek the deep, interior life of the soul, 
the more do we come into communion with the disem- 
bodied, who have entered the shining gateway of eternal 
peace. This is true Spiritualism. In such blessed inter- 
course we find that Death is no longer the " King of 



SPIPwIT INTERCOURSE THROUGH SPIRIT CULTURE. 



9,5 



Terrors," but a kind and gentle friend who opens the 
door to the upper and better mansions of our Father. 
The dark portals of the grave become illuminated with 
celestial radiance, and the mists of the " valley and 
shadow " melt into the soft, roseate hues of a golden 
morning, on whose atmosphere float angelic forms 
waiting to bear us in their loving arms to the land of 
the blest. 

But the best result of that self-culture which yields 
so rich a harvest of spiritual intercourse, is that it gives 
us to ourselves. The effort to attain the summit of that 
sacred mountain, brings into exercise the dormant 
energies of our spiritual natures, so that at last we are 
truly "born again" into this beautiful fullness of 
spiritual life. Then we appreciate our riches ; then we 
realize our strength. " We shall mount up with wings 
as eagles ; we shall run and not be weary ; we shall 
walk and not faint." What was once dark and 
mysterious in the operations of Nature now becomes 
luminous and beautiful ; and the soul rests in an un- 
wavering faith on the eternal supremacy of Good. 

Because Tarn, therefore I cannot cease to be. Thou, 
O friend ! desirest immortality because thou art im- 
mortal. Thou aspirest to goodness because thou art the 
Good ! Thou lovest the beautiful because thy soul is a 
fountain of beauty. All principles are eternal, and the 



26 THE SOUL AND ITS ASPIRATIONS IDENTICAL. 

fact that we can comprehend them is ample proof that 
we have a conscious existence paralel with them. We 
need no outward testimony to give us a guarantee of 
eternal life, for when we have attained the power to 
glide into this inner sanctuary of the soul, we know 
that the genius there enshrined 

" Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
Spreads undivided, operates unspent." 

THE SOUL AND JTS ASPIRATIONS IDENTICAL., 

The soul is absolute. Essentially, it knows neither 
time nor space ; but relatively, it takes on the condi- 
tions of both. Emerson says : 

" As there is no screen or ceiling between our heads 
and the infinite heavens, so there is no bar or wall in 
the soul where man, the effect, ceases ; and God, the 
cause, begins. The walls are taken away. We lie 
open on one side to the deeps of spiritual nature, to the 
attributes of God." 

These are the words of an inspired teacher, and we 
accept them gratefully. But since there is another 
side to the soul on which impinge the bodily organs and 
functions, and all the conditions of mortality, it is but 
natural to inquire what follows on the severing of those 
ties which hold body and soul in an earthly union. 



THl! 

We have seen that, by means of the body, the soul 
is enabled to start on its eternal pilgrimage as an 
individualized entity ; but as the steam which is generated 
by the fire and water of a locomotive soon dominates 
both the engine and the train, so the spirit, when once 
evolved, through the agency of the body, dominates that 
bodv and all its concomitants. Holding this absolute 
sway, the inmost nature, which I have called soul or 
spirit, clothes itself with a spiritual body which is now 
intermediate, but becomes outermost when the connec- 
tion between soul and body is dissolved. This inter- 
mediate spiritual body permeates the physical, giving 
warmth to the blood, strength to the muscles, and life 
and sensation to the whole visible organism ; while 
that, in turn, gleans from Nature's storehouse her 
choicest viands and devotes them to building up and 
perfecting this interior form which is to pass on with 
the spirit into the Second Sphere. 

In that natural, peaceful life which nature intended 
for man, this reciprocal process goes on till the meridian 
of years is passed, and then the spiritual forces 
gradually withdraw from the external form in order to 
complete the internal temple, and strengthen and 
beautify it for an exit to the better land. 

Hence, the failing step, the tottering frame and 
sunken eye of age, while the spiritual body within is 



28 THE LAST SCENE. -OF ALL. 

young, and strong, and beautiful, awaiting its peaceful 
journey to fairer groves than those ®f blest Arcadia. 



THE LAST SCENE OF ALL. 

And now the shrunken form is still and pale, and 
the mourner stands with hushed breath beside the 
death-bed. To the physical sense all is over ; but to 
the spiritual vision there has just commenced a sublime 
apotheosis. (See "Great Harmonia," vol. i., p. 157.) 
Above that lifeless head plays a halo of light, and anon 
it spreads into a large radiant wave and rises on the 
sustaining air. Gradually this luminous, nebulous, 
wave-like emanation takes form and features very like, 
and yet vastly unlike, the prostrate body beneath it. 
At first it is as though the departed loved one had 
returned to helpless infancy, with its soft, pliant limbs,, 
and innocent eyes. Then the spiritual form gathers 
fullness, and buoyant youth, in its grace and glory, 
stands transfigured before the inner vision. 

Around the new-born spirit is the angel band which 
has been waiting to give it w T elcome. They bear it 
upward on the bosom of that magnetic river which sets 
toward the Summer Land. Swiftly, beyond clouds, 
and planets, and suns, they soar, till golden hills, and 
pellucid lakes, and the fragrant breath of countless 



THE LAST SCENE OF ALL. 29 

star-gemmed flowers, and the full, orchestral burst of 
myriad love-full voices, guide them Home from their 
far journeyings. 

Iu the bowers and beside the crystal streams of that 
high and holy Home begins the new life of the late 
enfranchised being. Blessings and beauties before 
undreamed of in her wildest imaginings cluster thick 
around her. Avenues to knowledge, wisdom, and pro- 
gression, open on every hand. Loving eyes beam upon 
her, gentle hands clasp her own. By all that is great 
and glorious she is moved to be noble, good, and great. 
Earth, with its pain and grief, and multiform causes of 
evil, is behind her. Heaven, with its harmony and joy, 
and multiform cures of the effects of evil, is before 
her. The mighty soul, which once struggled in vain 
to force its way through its limitations, now rises 
grandly np and claims its kindred and its destiny. 
Deep gratitude fills her being for the kindly ministra- 
tion of Death, and in the garden of an eternal Eden 
she is forever blest. 



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